Five minutes from the house on foot, which is the whole reason it works. Walk down, no plan, let the afternoon land where it lands. On a Sunday they run a Carbonara pizza with a fried egg thrown on top and, if you're feeling reckless, a bump of caviar. We ate the entire thing without saying a word. Sarah still orders the Bianca.
When a morning has earned the right to take its time, we point the truck up the hill to the Famous Toastery in Blowing Rock. Big plates, coffee that keeps coming, a patio worth lingering on with the ridge behind it. There are others scattered across the state and we won't tell you which to pick, but the one up the hill is ours.
Down on the west side of Lake Norman, worth the trip when we're that way. Picnic tables, cold pours, the kind of place you end up sitting longer than you meant to. The Meg hauled a six-pack back to the porch one evening and it has been in the rotation ever since, which is about the highest honor a beer gets around here.
Half an hour down the mountain, on Union Square in downtown Hickory, and the first room around here to put jazz up on a stage instead of just on a record. Low light, vinyl humming between sets, small plates that lean hard on local farms, some of it grown right up our own valley. Caleb wore out the same records in the garage for twenty years before this place handed him the live version. Saturdays it's a real trio; the rest of the week the needle does the work.